


Academic

by Kaneko



Category: Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-15
Updated: 2002-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:46:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaneko/pseuds/Kaneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luncheon parties with Reverend Buckland were something of a mixed pleasure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Academic

**Author's Note:**

> Proteinscollide wanted a lambs AU with an academic bent.

Luncheon parties with Reverend Buckland were something of a mixed pleasure. On the one hand, the Reverend knew everyone, but _everyone_ \- even the great Charles Lyell himself. On the other hand-

"Bass, you must try this!" Buckland said. He gestured excitedly. "Jamison shot it just this week!"

The butler obligingly uncovered a dish, and tonged a sliver of meat onto Lance's plate. It quivered in its own aspic. "Roasted hedgehog, sir," the butler said sympathetically.

"Oh my," Lance said in horror. "Capital."

"It goes quite well with the wine," someone said behind him.

Lance turned just in time for the wind to blow a crack in the trees above. He blinked in the sudden sharp sunlight.

"Ah yes." Buckland said, while Lance squinted. Lance could hear him swallowing his own mouthful of hedgehog. "Mr Bass please meet Mr Timberlake. He's from America if you can believe it."

Lance blinked again and the tree slid back. The silhouette in front of him resolved into a man with his hand extended.

"From Tennessee," Timberlake said. He smiled and Lance almost felt blinded again.

"A pleasure," Lance said. His fingers tingled in the man's grip.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you," Timberlake said earnestly. "The Reverend says you're quite an expert on the separation of the sexes."

"He- he _what?_ "

"In plants," Timberlake added. He looked a little flushed suddenly.

"Oh!" Lance felt quite flushed himself. "I'm- Yes." He took a bite of the hedgehog, and almost choked. "Uh-" He swallowed quickly before his tastebuds could realise what he'd done. "Yes. I have some theories about the condition - or lack, really - of dioecious forms in Primulaceae and Linaceae."

"Fascinating," Timberlake said. And he really did seem fascinated. "You're saying there _is_ no separation!"

"Yes, precisely!" Lance said. He pressed his glasses further up his nose. "But the truly startling thing, is that this is generalised! Across nature, the higher plants seem to have sexes less often separated than in the lower plants. It's-"

"It's so exactly the reverse of what takes place in animals," Timberlake finished for him.

"Exactly!" Lance said, smiling.

Timberlake grinned at him. He was flushed again - with enthusiasm this time, Lance thought a little breathlessly. He watched, charmed, as Timberlake tugged his cravat a little looser, plucked a sharp stick from the ground, scratched a circle into the dirt, and then marked a slice of it.

"So if we subtract the aquatic genera," Timberlake said. "Only one-thirteenth belong to these two classes. Is there any truth in this generally? Can aquatic plants, being confined to a small community of individuals, require more free crossing, and therefore have separate sexes?"

Lance laughed helplessly. He was panting a little - from the scrap of it, he thought. From the joyous challenge of keeping up.

Timberlake looked up at him and grinned as though he knew exactly what Lance was thinking. "I feel as though I already know you," he said confidingly.

And that was the beginning.


End file.
